Verner von Heidenstam was raised in aristocracy, a sick child and a poor student, and as a young man he was sent to study art and literature in Paris. His first book of poems, Vallfart och vandringsår (Pilgrimage and Wander Years), was inspired by a visit to the Middle East, and portrayed that region as a wonderland of exotic pleasures. His most widely-read work was the multi-volume historical novel Karolinerna (The Charles Men), about royal intrigue surrounding Sweden's King Charles XII a century earlier. For his poetry and novels, von Heidenstam was awarded the 1916 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Von Heidenstam's obituary in Time said he had "revolted against literary pessimism", but in his last decades his popularity as a writer dwindled, and he wrote virtually nothing. For years he publicly feuded with Swedish playwright August Strindberg, who once described him as "Sweden's most unintelligent man". In the 1985 Swedish mini-series August Strindberg: Ett liv, von Heidenstam was unflatteringly portrayed by Stellan Skarsgård.